dreamweaver, web standards, and music theory.

Archive for July, 2004

Interested in watching home-made, human-powered flying machines launching themselves off a short ramp into the sky (or more often- the water)? If so, this is the event for you. (And if not, it’s probably still worth watching.)
Red Bull has agreed to broadcast their Saturday, July 31 (1 PM PST) Flugtag event in Portland, Oregon live using Flash Video and the all-new FVSS Live streaming service from VitalStream. You’ll be able to switch between three live camera angles during the event, as well as watch clips on “aircraft” construction- and the teams who are competing.

So- if you’re even remotely interested tomorrow- just click the link above and enjoy watching crazy inventors and homespun aviators attempt to fly- while the Wright Brothers are undoubtedly rolling in their graves. (Note: in case you can’t view the event live, it will reportedly be archived for later viewing.)

Just stumbled across a rather nice PHP RSS reader extension for Dreamweaver by Andres Cayon of Tecnorama, that could be just the call for inserting external feeds into your PHP-based site quickly. The extension focuses more on integration with DW’s design view than existing code-based solutions. Requirements are simply a PHP server with XML support and the current version of DW- and at first launch it appears to work exactly as stated for me. If you’re already comfortable working with recordsets in DW, getting started with this extension should be a no-brainer. Nice job, Andres!

In this digital world, email flows quite freely and can pile up equally as fast. As such, I wanted to highlight one free/donationware utility for Mac, one commercial utility for Windows- both for dealing with email, something I do an increasing amount of day-to-day. I’ve been trying to avoid OT blog posts lately, but will succumb to internal demons just this once…

First up, X1 Search, a $99 utility for Windows (I really wish this was available for Macs, too- alas, if only LaunchBar indexed email messages this way). What justifies the $99? X1 lets you very quickly search through email messages, file attachments and/or contacts. I was very skeptical, until Alexandru and Bogdan from InterAKT gave me a live demo in a local SF eatery. The discussion had started around Dreamweaver APIs, but once we started trying to refer to earlier discussions, the topic quickly morphed into how difficult it can be to quickly locate random conversations out of our HUGE volumes of archived email. In the next 2 minutes I became an X1 convert. X1 Search runs reasonably silent (a systray icon belies it’s presence) and can be put in ‘auto-hide’ mode across the top of your screen to quickly access it- and in so doing, your years-worth of archived email. X2 supports Outlook, OE, Eudora and Netscape Mail on Windows. If you use any of these clients on Windows and are frequently trying to locate that ‘one specific email or file’ that’s been eluding you- this may be right up your alley. It’s become indispensable to me in just a few weeks- check out the demo if you’re remotely interested.

Next up, Mail.appetizer for Mac OS 10.3+. One of the most initially-pointless but eventually-handy features of Windows Outlook 2003 for me was the little semi-transparent ‘alert’ window that popped up whenever I got new email in my Inbox. Mail.appetizer essentially allows you to get similar features in Apple Mail – a somewhat configurable, transparent alert shows up in your location of choosing whenever you get new mail – showing the subject, sender, time and an excerpt of the message itself. Less functionally-handy than X1 by leaps and bounds, but tres cool if you’re often nose-down and want a quick glimpse of what’s flying into your inbox without switching apps ad nauseum. Mail.appetizer is free- but donations are accepted.

Hope you find these two utilities interesting- I’ve become a bit hooked on both.

Last week the Contribute 3 Preview was released, and the downloads have been flying out ever since. Have you tried it out yet, and if so, have you also tried the integrated Web Publishing System? The WPS adds far richer workflow and integrated group publishing than would be possible with Contribute alone. Further, it also centralizes both connections and access permissions- integrating with existing LDAP and Active Directory user directories – and features a plush, web service-based notification API that lets you trigger interactions with external applications and systems as a document passes through its workflow- making for a very flexible publishing solution that plays nicely with existing infrastructures. Check it out if you haven’t- and drop a comment here if you have, as I’m really interested in hearing some on-the-ground feedback… thx!

In a recent Developer Center update – T-Mobile reports launching the first Flash Lite 1.1-powered mobile service in Europe. Available for both 2.5G and 3G devices, the new “News Express” service delivers twice-daily reports to Flash Lite 1.1-enabled phones (based on Symbian OS’es- both Series 60 handsets and UIQ devices), which can be browsed both on and offline. Check it out, and if able- please post a comment so those of us outside the EU can hear a first-person review… ;-)

A rather open-ended question to pose for those reading- are you using Linux as part of your regular workflow today (either server or desktop), and how do you currently use it in conjunction with Macromedia’s Studio products? What are the pitfalls, what works well? I’m particularly interested in thoughts from any developers using open IDEs such as Eclipse or Mac/Windows-based designers who interact regularly with Linux-based developers, and how you currently interact between your toolsets. Thoughts? Please post a comment and share your experiences!

“If you’re looking for an online meeting tool with powerful features and extensibility, you should give Breeze a try. It’s not perfect by any means, but it provides a host of features you won’t find in similar tools, and for a very reasonable price.”

Note that the review is heavily centered on the PowerPoint integration features- which although indeed quite slick- are not the most ‘sexy’ features of Breeze in my opinion. The audio/video presentation features and customizable workspaces are what resonate the most with me after a few months of heavy use- but to be fair, the reviewer does admit to only scratching the surface. Check it out!

Just a quickie update- I’ve received a few emails asking when Search will return to the forums, and the short answer I’ve heard is ‘soon’. However, I should note that Forums Search isn’t entirely AWOL either- only the Advanced Search page. You can still enter terms in the text entry fields in the basic Search form (the single textarea box in the header of any forum listing/detail view) and search thru the last 90 days of postings via the basic interface. More details as I get ‘em…